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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Marxists have traditionally cared more about the material realm and believed the spiritual realm to be an insignificant appendix of matter. Judeo-Christian fanatics, on the other hand, believe the material realm (the City of Man in Augustine's terminology) to be secondary and think that only the spiritual one (the City of God) matters.

That's why Judeo-Christian fanatics have often been willing to accept some loosening of government control in the material sphere. You see, the earthly world is largely irrelevant to them - they, as it were, "live" in the heavenly world and look down upon earthly problems with indifference or even disgust. You will never find a passion for free markets or liberty in general in their hearts - if they do support free markets, they do so as a pragmatic concession to the rotten world of matter, as a reluctant recognition of man's "sinful", egoistic nature, his "original sin." Indeed, free markets receive only lukewarm support, if any, from firebrand Evangelicals, who are much more concerned about muscling in on the moral sphere and cracking unbelievers' skulls than about economics. For that matter, Hitler didn't care about economics either, as he repeatedly stated, - he was much more concerned about the Deutsche Volk's "Geist". See the affinity? Judeo-Christian fanaticism is fascist in the sense that fascists have put a similar emphasis on "spirit" and on "public morality" (my ass), as opposed to "vile matter" that was glorified by the Marxists.

Judeo-Christian fanatics support not freedom in reality but freedom from reality - i.e. from this earthly world. Here their concept of liberty differs from that of a rational man on the deepest, most fundamental level. There is nothing more fundamental than that. Moreover, these concepts are diametrically opposed.

To understand that Christian fanatics' lip service to free markets is superficial and fleeting, to say the least, one needs to realize that economics is largely irrelevant to the archaic mentality they espouse (hence a lack of an open hatred for free markets, as opposed to the modernist left, which is familiar with the concept of economics). Their indifference to economic issues is accounted for by the fact that in many barbarous societies that originated or upheld Judeo-Christian tenets (especially Old Testament ones) there was no economy in the modern sense. They were largely subsistence economies where the notion of "market" was an exception, not the rule. I mean, first of all, 1st century Galilee, the Roman Empire's dominate period (which increasingly degraded from a market economy to a subsistence economy) and the early medieval period. The modern notion of a free-market capitalist is alien to these societies. The notions of freedom (in the classical liberal sense) and individual rights are absolutely alien to this mentality too.

Moreover, the flimsy and unsustainable alliance of Christian fanatics with the libertarian movement in the U.S. is in many ways a unique phenomenon. It has much more to do with the generally libertarian spirit of the American people than with any affinity between Christianity and liberty (there is no affinity whatsoever, of course). Elsewhere, religious fanatics have generally been emphatically anti-libertarian (though there were exceptions). Established churches and social conservatives in Europe have traditionally leaned to the totalitarian side, rather than to freedom.

Evidence to the anti-freedom nature of even those religious fanatics who claim to support free markets is ample. Self-styled "libertarian" Christian Reconstructionist Gary North advocates stoning for abortion and blasphemy. Even Bin Laden advocated some "free-market" ideas in his landmark 1996 fatwa that authorized indiscriminate killing of Americans and Jews anywhere in the world. I bet my ass he did not say that out of love for freedom (and neither did his spiritual comrade Gary North). Moreover, the totalitarian Islamic countries of the Arabian Peninsula lead in terms of tax freedom and recently considered switching to a gold standard. Newt Gingrich supported the death penalty for drug smuggling. It might be supposed that some Republicans' stupid and irrational stance on drugs may be attributed to the fact that drugs, as it were, "invade" the mental realm, which is what religionists want to control.

In ancient Judea, the violation of Mosaic commandments prohibiting the worship of idols, working on Saturday (Sabbath), adultery and false witnessing were sometimes punished with death. Indeed, similar barbarism was incorporated into Islam by Muhammed, who was heavily influenced by Judaism. Moreover, the infamous Gary North wants to resurrect similar Old Testament traditions.

Christians advocate violating women's individual rights by cracking down on abortion and contraception. Just like the totalitarian leftists, they have generally supported using government coercion to pursue their agenda in public schools - that is, the teaching of primitive superstitions like creationism and intelligent design (i.e. creationism lite with a pseudo-modernist façade) and a ban on sex education, as well as such moronic feats of indoctrination as school prayer. School vouchers can be seen as a way to get rid of liberal indoctrination but they can also be viewed as theft of taxpayers' money to finance religious propaganda (I'm not against religious indoctrination at privately-financed schools but I'm opposed to the use of state-sanctioned robbery to fund such activities). The Scopes Trial was indeed a grotesque apotheosis of this campaign, a disgusting Stalin-style show trial reminiscent of the Inquisition's case against Giordano Bruno (which seems absurdly surreal in the 20th century America).

Sodomy laws (though seldom enforced) existed in socially conservative states until the early 21st century, which is quite a piece of barbarism by the standards of our age. Laws punishing adultery are still on the books in many states, though they're not enforced. The Christian fascists' campaign against pornography has been extremely violent and Stalinesque. Possession of pornography in some jurisdictions can (or could) land you in jail for several decades, which is such a blatant and grotesque example of a victimless crime that it is almost beyond belief that these people actually claim to be defenders of liberty. Until the mid-20th century religious cranks in the U.S. and Europe succeeded in banning even books with mildly erotic content (the most famous examples are such classics as Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer, Ulysses and Lolita). In the 19th century the Puritan stronghold of Boston became so notorious for banning books and plays that the "banned in Boston" idiom was coined. Whatever these "social conservatives" want to conserve, it is not freedom but slavery, as Ayn Rand said. The People vs. Larry Flynt is a good movie on this issue, featuring medieval savages' campaign against consenting adults voluntary engaging in activities of a certain kind with others (or with themselves). Why can't these monsters mind their own fucking business? Why can't they just bloody fuck off and leave us alone - LAISSEZ-FAIRE, if you know what I mean?

Blasphemy laws existed in the U.S. until the landmark Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson decision entrenched 1st Amendment rights in the religious field. England and Wales formally abolished their blasphemy laws as late as 2008 (!). Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands and New Zealand still have blasphemy laws on their books. They have not generally been enforced since the 1920s, though there are mind-boggling and unbelievable exceptions like the case against Manfred van H in Germany. Additionally, outside the US blasphemy laws are being replaced by hate speech laws, which basically serve the same purpose but have a more "multiculturalist" flavor to them. Moreover, unlike blasphemy laws, hate speech provisions are frequently used to prosecute (or rather persecute) innocent victims. Here, as elsewhere, the agenda of the totalitarian left and the totalitarian Christian right merge. In Ireland, where blasphemy carries a fine of up to €25,000, ongoing debates about blasphemy legislation have a surreal flavor to them, placing medieval savagery in the limelight of the age of nuclear energy, space travel and genetic engineering. What the hell is there to debate about? Isn't is clear to you, dumbasses?

I have extensively dealt with Judeo-Christian fanatics' lip service for freedom in the material realm but even that description is an oversimplification. Freedom is fundamentally one - it cannot be meaningfully divided into spiritual and material liberty, because an integrity of mind and matter is required for man's survival. That's why a position advocating slavery in one sphere and liberty in another is untenable. Logically, only extreme liberty and extreme slavery are viable options, with the latter being self-defeating in the long run (i.e. leading either to man's extinction or the abandonment of slavery). Indeed, both some leftists and some Christian fanatics have realized as much. That's why many socialists have begun advocating slavery in the spiritual realm, while many Christians have supported slavery in the material realm. Thus, two sides of the irrational coin are merged into one hideous combination. Christians who advocated both spiritual and material authoritarianism or totalitarianism include Joachim of Fiore, the Diggers during the English Civil War, New England Puritans, Karl Marx (who was a Christian communist before he converted into a dialectical materialist), early 20th century progressives, Social Gospel cranks, millenarians and compassionate conservatives.

To sum up, religion is a rejection of reason and therefore is not compatible with liberty in any way whatsoever.

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